Ah, The Holidays Are Back: No Fa-La-La Included
Taking A Step Back To Get A Good Look At The Holidays

I hate the holidays.

At least this year I do. Right now, it's 7:00pm on Christmas night, and I'm sitting in front of my computer with a bad case of the flu. I wanted to be home in Los Angeles, eating tons and tons of my mother's homemade Gumbo, and sitting in front of the T.V. playing video games with my grand niece and nephews.

But here I am; sneezing and wheezing, trying to enjoy a happy Festivus for the rest-iv-us.

So why am I sitting here typing? Simple. I just witnessed something that caused me to think.

A little while ago, I was channel surfing through the endless amount of cable channels, when I stumbled onto The Fox News Channel. There was a Black man on the hot seat wearing a African Kufi and sporting the 'Malcolm' glasses. I actually came in on the 'tail-end' of the interview, but apparently, he was a reverend, who was discussing the problems with 'A White Christmas'.

Explanation: The Euro-centic foundation of American holidays; preferably Christmas. The fact that we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ by waiting for a plump old white man to come down our chimneys and bring us stuff. But he was clear on the point that, this wasn't the only problem. There was also the atrocity of the 'White Jesus' (a.k.a. Michelangelo's cousin, or nephew, or whatever..). So to make a long story short. The Rev was speaking about 'De-Euro-fying' these misconceptions, and the hosts took there turns at badgering the guest.

Typical Fox report. I didn't really care one way or the other.

But it did bring up some interesting thoughts in my noggin.

Isn't that the typical American Modus Operandi? Isn't that what we, the Capitalist Nation, do with the things we hold dear? (and keep in mind I said 'we', not 'they' or 'White America'. If your an American... then you're an American, warts and all...)

"We" take any and everything, suck it in and grind it through the corporate sanitation machine (to strip it of any ethnicity what so ever), repackage it, and feed it back to the people at large. Culture, Politics, Music, Art, all of it! We need to take away any and all historical uncomfortableness and make things 'nice and fluffy' for all the people to devour.

Now, don't take my sarcasm as being negative. I can actually see both sides of this argument.

In a country that (supposedly) promotes the 'melting pot' mentally, the art of processing and repackaging culture is a good way to introduce the masses to new experiences. We've done it with music (Jazz, Rock n' Roll, and most recently Hip-Hop), we've done it with films (action movies, based on historical events, like Pearl Harbor, and Ghetto films, a' la Boyz N' The Hood), and yes, we've especially done it with holidays. Let's take a look:

So, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Who the hell cares! IT'S A HOLIDAY!!! Go have some eggnog.

There's no doubt that the real meanings behind the holidays were lost a long time ago. They've been fine tuned to maximize the spending potential of the public! They're part of the financial system now. Retailers rely on the holidays for surges in public spending. And because of that, the corporatization of the holidays aren't exactly a bad thing.

In my family, we celebrated the holidays the same way everybody else does. But my mother thought it was important we know the true meaning of the holidays. She made it clear that Christmas and Easter were Holy days and that we honor those days with the appropriate education, even if we were running around the backyard like idiots looking for decorated boiled eggs in our church clothes.

As for the Reverend who had the problem with Christmas, I feel your pain, but don't agree with your point. Granted, the image of Jesus as a white man is false. The fact that Jerusalem's not a 'lilly white' town, shows that Jesus had to have some color in his cheeks.

But when he died on the cross, it was for 'the sins of man.', not 'the sins of men who look like me'. His color never really mattered. It's his teachings that everyone should be focusing on, right? If painting Him as a bearded white man in sandals, wearing a white sheet brings you closer to God, then good for you. If he's a Black man who strikingly resembles Barry White, then even better.

In conclusion, I say: Praise Barry White.

And I'm done...